Mexico Lashes Out at US After Migrant Massacre

President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador said Friday he doesn’t blame Mexico’s government for the massacre of 72 mainly Central American migrants, and called for a joint effort to fight drug cartels.

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Thirteen Salvadorans were among the dead identified so far in the massacre in late August, a killing blamed on one of Mexico’s drug cartels, the Zetas.

In a separate interview Friday, Calderon said the migrant massacre doesn’t undermine Mexico’s moral authority to demand better treatment for its own migrants.

“Of course we have the moral authority, because Mexican officials are not shooting Central American youths at the border, but U.S. agents are shooting Mexican migrants,” Calderon said in an interview with the Spanish-language Univision network.

“If we are talking about responsibility, at the root of this, in the case of immigration, is the lack of immigration legislation in the United States that would recognize this phenomenon,” Calderon said.

Funes, however, said during his joint appearance with Calderon that the home nations of migrants bear some of the responsibility for immigration problems.

“In part, the greatest responsibility lies with our governments, the Salvadoran government, for not having generated the employment conditions, the welfare conditions, that doesn’t leave our migrants any choice but to look for other opportunities in the United States and Canada.”

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